Mommy Makeover w/ Dr. Kagan @ Jolie Plastic Surgery in Miami, FL

Disclaimer: Everyone’s pain tolerance is different.
Right after sx, once I woke, I was not necessarily in pain in any particular area. I was just experiencing extreme lethargic-ness. I woke up shaking from feeling really cold. The nurses in the recovery room of the surgery center put a hose that blew warm air under my blanket for a good 5/10 minutes before they were trying to sit me up, dress me, transfer me to a wheel chair, and then into an SUV where my driver was to take me back to the recovery house, all back to back with no rest breaks in between.
When you feel really lethargic/fatigue, every task seems to be a HUGE challenge, starting with me lifting up my leg to transition from laying down to sitting on the side of the bed. So the whole waking up and going back to the house wasn’t necessarily ‘painful’ more that just incredibly difficult and uncomfortable. I would say the worse part is the ride to the house. I felt EVERY bump in the road as more input to the swimming in my head. It was rough. Once seated in the recliner in my room, I was only able to get relief after 2/3 hours and 2 hydrocodone pills later. I DO NOT advise anyone to double dose with the meds the doctor prescribes but I was desperate to feel human again. Once everything settled, I was able to drink some chicken broth which helped soooo much to counteract the heavy medication on my empty stomach. Remember, you fast the day of surgery and I didn’t go into the sx room until after 2pm. I’m not sure exactly how long my sx was or how long I slept while in recovery but I do know I didn’t get to the house until 8pm and didn’t feel ok enough until 11pm.
So let’s talk about (pain) medicine.. Kagan prescribed 12 antibiotic pills, 20 pain pills (hydrocodone), and I don’t remember how many nausea pills (I never needed them). The instructions were to take the antibiotic pills every 6 hrs and the pain pills every 4. Seeing as though I doubled up on my 1st dose of the pain meds, you may have done the math that the hydro only lasted for 3 days post op. During those 3 days I could really feel the tightness in my stomach and the heaviness of my breast by the time it was time for my next dosage. Again, I wouldn’t necessarily equate that to meaning pain for me. Pain for me is the burn sensation that up to this day, 7 days post op, that I feel where my drains are. I have a doctors appt tomorrow to share those concerns but for now I just breath thru those spells. They only last the same length of pregnancy contractions but not nearly as often, maybe 4/5 times out of the day. Maybe I’m being to lax about it but I feel as if it’s just nerve ending trying to heal or the muscle wall trying to fuse with my skin or the drain just moves slightly when I do and causes it to hurt. We will see tomorrow. Anyway back to the meds... So after my pills ran out (Technically it didn’t ‘run out’ I saved 1 for my plane ride back home and I’m glad I did) I asked the nurse practitioner (I didn’t see my doctor again during my time there), borderline begged her for a refill. She was like uh, nah! LOL I can laugh about it now but I legit thought it was the end of the world then. I was all like ‘I just had TWO major surgeries at the same time! I’m not like the bbl girls, I got gutted open and you want me to suffer thru this pain!!’ She was like you’ll be ok just take 2 Tylenol Extra Strength and nothing else no ibuprofen or advil, etc. In my mind I was thinking “Girl bye! That weak stuff ain’t gonna help!” Buuut to my surprise old Ty-Ty was able to give me enough relief for the rest of the trip up until I took that last hydro before I left for the airport, 5 days post op. I’m actually really thankful that my hydro wasn’t refilled b/c I could see now in hindsight how dependent I became on them in just 3 days! Since I’ve been home, I’ve only taken 1 or 2 doses of Ty and have been trying to get back to taking natural supplements like omega 3&6, vitamins, etc to help heal naturally as I prefer holistic and homeopathic healing vs man made medications and I feel like it’s working for me outside of the occasional burning feeling and that feeling I would rate as a 6/10 on the pain scale. I’m really hopeful that that feeling will dissipate once the drains are removed. On that note, I’m gonna do a full write up on drain next post.

When I first started this review I did so pre-op so I didn’t give Kagan any score. Now that I have had my sx I was gonna give 4 stars but RealSelf won’t let me update it! ????
I give 4 instead of 5 stars b/c of my experience as a whole not just w/ the doctor. If you want to have a procedure and get babied and taken good care of afterwards, Jolie ain’t for you. If you are a bit antisocial and want to only be able to get in touch with staff and be seen when you feel like you require it, I would say call Jolie. It has its place for whom it may work for. Unfortunately, I had other thoughts on how my stay would go here in Miami but by God’s grace I was able to still see the positive by seeing my own strength in taking care of myself for the most part (my sister helped too).
As far as the doctors work, I’m staying optimistic that my results will get better with time and once swelling goes down but you can be the judge. If nothing else I’m glad Kagan was able to take me from 2 guts to having just one. Here’s my day 4 (if you don’t count sx day as day 1) post op pix...

Do yall consider the day you come out of sx day 1?? Lol I’m obvi new to this.. Anywho, here’s a description of sx day from beginning to end:
When I arrived at Jolie I took a drug test, took more before pix (I had taken some for my pre-op appt, which are the ones I posted yesterday), Kagan came in and marked me up, and the anesthetist started an IV of just fluid in my hand. All-in-all it was about 2 hours before I was ready for sx. Surgery in itself was maybe 4 hours or so, I’m actually not sure. I just know I was in the clinic 6/7 hours or so.
Once I made it to the OR, I laid on the table, they put some kind of leg contraption-thingy on that continuously inflated and deflated to help with circulation, they put an oxygen mask on, started my anesthesia through my hand IV and then I was OUT!
I woke up in the recovery room shaking from the freezing air, the staff put a large hose under my sheets to warm me up, then immediately had me get up and transferred me to a w/c and pushed me out to my driver’s TRUCK! Yes I had to climb into a truck after having a TT! Ugh!!! The transfer from recovery at Jolie to the recovery house where I stayed was soo uncomfortable and for the first 4/5 hours laying on the recliner at the house was painful as crap but once the anesthesia wore off some, I was able to get some relief from the pain medication and feel more comfortable.
Once I had a good sleep I woke up and took this pic of my breast the same day of my sx. I was afraid to take my TT binder off so waited until my post op appt the day after my sx to get pix of my new tummy. Here’s those pics...